


Cloudless Noonday Skies

by concretebrush



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: F/M, Raleigh-centric, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-31
Updated: 2013-07-31
Packaged: 2017-12-21 23:01:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/905983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/concretebrush/pseuds/concretebrush
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raleigh comes to his senses and realizes happiness isn't hard to find. He just has to reach.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cloudless Noonday Skies

“People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.” - Abraham Lincoln

* * *

 

We make our own happiness. which also means that we have thousands of opportunities to screw it up.

Raleigh knows this fact intimately. He has lived it and watched every stupid decision play out in terrifyingly slow real time.

Hindsight is not only 20/20, it's telescopic and microscopic vision all in one.

Nail gnawing, jaw clenching regret hangs over him in the vapor he expels on a cold day, and sticks to his skin with the sweat of another training session, the nameless face a poor substitute for the partner who can tell what he is thinking before he thinks it, with whom the give and take of sparring is effortless and ballet graceful, whose memories have grafted onto his to make something so much more beautiful than either could be alone.

When he looks back on her last week at the station (accompanied immediately with a fresh wave of pain saying _look at what you could have had you fool_ ) the memories bleed together. Like his brain understands that there needs to be emotional distance between himself and the occurrences of those days for his sanity's sake.

He shuffles through the reasons he made for letting her go without even asking (trying) to keep the two halves of himself together - and isn't that just the _truth_ of the drift because although he'd like to say that he just added parts of her to what he used to be, that makes 150% of a person and even he, who never got above a B in math, knows that's impossible so now half of him is made up of her and she's _not here not here not here_ \- but for the life of him, he can't remember why they ever made sense in the first place.

This is, he thinks, the fallacy, the great hamartia of drifting. You become dependent on another person, and there's possibly no other gamble quite as perilous (or fulfilling).

He _does_ remember futility and a ridiculously perfect job offer and a future (hers) written in gold and despondence (his) because there was an insistent voice in his head that kept saying he was only dead weight and a desperate thought of maybe Alaska and a goodbye that was not even on the same continent as sufficient.

But in his heart of hearts he knows some part of his decision was motivated by fear. Fear that eventually she would find him wanting. That he wouldn't be enough for her, this brilliant, talented woman. And who was he? He could throw punches and insults with ease but what was he _worth_? In the end the answer he sees is still the same. (Not as much as her.) He doesn't deserve her, she may have chosen him, yes, but he doesn't deserve her, and this thought weighs him down heavier than his brother's old dog tags, than the construction boots he wore on flimsy coastal walls.

So he pushed. Despite feeling her confusion at his insistence that they go their separate paths for a while, despite hearing her quiet pleas in his head, he refused to be swayed. Telling himself that although he wasn't good at it, for her he'd try to use his head before following blindly, impulsively after his heart (after Mako).

Her bewilderment at his choice to go to Alaska alone did not stop her from letting him do what he needed. And how he misguidedly thought he needed was time alone to heal (how can he heal when a part of him is missing? _Stupid stupid._ )

She walked onto the plane with sorrow yes, but also with the lightness of being the one to yield. He watched her leave with all the burden of his decision settled into the hunch of his spine.

Two months later and it still takes a concentrated effort for him to face the world without bending over from grief. Because it _is_ grief. Settled like the ache of arthritis in his joints, like a gnawing hunger he cannot satisfy.

They talk daily, and a now noticeable dent has been made in his bank account (international shipping is such a pain).

But all he had really wanted to do was to prove to himself that he could live without her. That he would not fall apart like he did after Yancy. Because that was a dark place he does not _ever_ want to see again (after Yancy, he had looked at razors in contemplation for far too long, far too often. Once he had even touched it to his wrist, red welling up and out and onto white marble tiles).

It is a successful experiment. He finds that yes, he _can_ survive without her physical presence (he doesn't count their calls. He won't cut off all communication for the sake of his mental security because even he is not that much of a masochist). He may still be functional, and he may still be alive, but he isn't _happy._ He lives in a twilight state, one where a constant dull pain presses behind his eyelids.

He dreams of her often. Of strands of blue juxtaposed with inky black. Of large liquid eyes that he could spend an eternity peering into.

He wakes with a gasp. Those mornings are hardest. The usual discomfort of missing some integral part of himself amplifies into a knife that slices up his chest. Pain sparks along his nervous system, ending in uncomfortable prickles in his hands and feet.

One spring morning, after a particularly vivid night of her strong, lithe body, and the way her eyelashes cast shadows on her cheeks _just so._ He has decided that he has had enough.

Who is he to deny himself the happiness he has so longed for? The thought that _you could've avoided all this if only you chose to, you idiot...but, but, you can still end this suffering now_ hits him with all the blinding clarity of mid-morning sun on a peaceful Alaskan coast.

He calls her. Asks her where she is. His journey to piece himself together isn't over, but it should certainly end with her (where it started). He feels wetness at the corners of his eyes and _apologizes apologizes apologizes._ He tells her of fear and a misguided _stupid_ thought that they each needed to find themselves first, be their own person, see that they can survive when still apart. But now he looks back and his oversight hits him full on the face. They can't ever be their own person, not when they own so much of each other. Drifting like that, with the level of connection that came so easily between them, has condemned them to the fate of only being full, complete, when together.

Maybe he will grow too close again. Maybe if she ends up gone he'll sink back into the pit she pulled him out of, but happiness is taking chances and staking all he has on their future. And right now it looks as bright as a cloudless noonday sky.

When he first steps off the plane and sees her waiting for him behind the paper signs of 'Limousine for Mark', 'Welcome home Sally!' untrammeled joy settles around his shoulders, and he is powerless to stop the smile that lights up his face. He can walk straight for the first time in two months and it is _glorious._ He buries his face in the crook of her neck, and their arms become a comforting vise wrapped so tightly around each other there is scant room to draw breath. He whispers into her hair _I was always going to come to you eventually. I just had to figure out a few things first._ She breathes absolution onto his lips.

We make our own happiness, which comes with all the benediction and weight of free choice. But the greatest beauty is that the only thing you have to do, is to _want_ it hard enough.


End file.
